


A little death

by Nary



Category: The Sandman
Genre: Bad Puns, F/M, Hard to get, Metaphysics, Near Death Experience, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-16
Updated: 2010-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-08 23:51:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/pseuds/Nary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every few decades, the man once called Hob Gadling saw Death, but he never approached her when he noticed her about her business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A little death

Every few decades, the man once called Hob Gadling (later Robin, Bob, Bobby, Robbie, or Robert, as it suited his fancy or the age's) saw Death. He'd see her across the street, or catch a glimpse of her riding by in a carriage. Once he thought he saw her in sailor's clothes, climbing the rigging of his barquentine, just before one of the boys aloft fell and cracked his skull. And later still, not long after the Underground opened, he spotted her boarding a train at King's Cross. He didn't stay to see what happened there – probably nothing good.

He had heard of her occasionally in his rare conversations with her brother, one for each century that passed. He'd heard she was capricious, but then, he already knew that. If he strained his mind, he thought he could remember her from that fateful night in the tavern when he'd made his decision to live forever, pale and far too lovely, though he might have been imagining that. After all, he couldn't even remember his dear Eleanor's face, not after this long.

He never approached her when he noticed her about her business, but sometimes he'd give a cheerful wave or a nod and tip of his hat. She'd generally smile back, polite enough, but she never came over to talk to him either. It seemed she had no greater desire to make his acquaintance than he did to make hers, and that suited him fine.

Over the centuries, though, he grew curious about her. He still didn't want to die, of course, but he thought it might be interesting just to talk to her. He had any number of questions. Funny, then, that when he found himself face to face with her in Paris in the spring of 1938, the first thing that came out of his mouth was "You're beautiful." It was true – she looked like Greta Garbo except with black hair.

"Hello, Robert," she said, and her smile made him go weak in the knees like he hadn't done in a hundred years or more. "Isn't it a gorgeous day?"

He nodded, his mouth gone suddenly dry. "Is this... is this it?"

To his surprise, she laughed. "Oh, that's not up to me!"

"Who's it up to, then?"

"Ultimately, you."

"Well, I'm not ready to go yet."

Her eyes seemed to twinkle – not in the cold, eerie way her brother's did, but merry, playful, and maybe a little flirtatious. "Am I that terrifying?"

"With all due respect, milady, it's not you per se – it's what comes after you that I'm not so sure about. Now, if I had a better idea what that was..."

"All in due time, Hob." She held out her hand to him.

He hesitated. "This isn't a trick, is it?"

"I don't play tricks," she said. "This is just a... taste. If you want it." So he let his fingers close over hers. He'd expected her skin to be cold, but it wasn't, just smooth and soft, as if she'd never done a day's work. He had to laugh, then, for surely she worked harder than anyone in the universe.

"Where are we?" he asked, looking around.

"My room," she said matter-of-factly. "Sorry the bed's not made, I wasn't expecting company." In fact, the entire room was a bit of a mess, but in a comfortable, warm, lived-in way. She pushed a plush teddy bear off to one side and sat down on the rumpled sheets, her skirt floofing out around her.

Hob knew he was far, far out of his depth, but kept treading water because it was the only thing he knew how to do. "And why am I here, if you weren't expecting company?"

She shrugged, almost shyly, and smiled up at him. "You remember how, when you were fourteen, you loved Agnes Thorpe, the miller's middle daughter?"

"My God," he said, "I'd forgotten about her. She had freckles, didn't she, and curly brown hair..."

"And she wouldn't so much as speak to you. And you wanted her so badly."

"Probably wanted her _more_ because she wouldn't give me the time of day," he agreed.

"Well, maybe it's like that with us," she said, and wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him down onto the bed with her.

"Do you mean I've been playing hard-to-get all these years and so you're finally going to reel me in one way or another, or that you're only interested in me because I'm mysterious, and you're trying to dispel the mystery and get me out of your system, or...?"

"Hob?" she said sweetly, and waited until he'd trailed off. "Stop thinking, start doing." So he did.

In his five and a half centuries, Hob had been with more women than he could remember, and a few men too, for variety's sake; she was a little like each of them, and like nothing he'd ever known before. She was snow melting into a torrent, she was an iron red-hot from the fire, she was desperate thirst slaked with unwatered wine, rushing straight to his head. He thought for certain he'd peak too soon, like a green lad – compared to her, after all, he was – but somehow he didn't. She made him soar instead.

It wasn't about bodies, even though theirs were joined, and it wasn't about answers, even though he felt like he was on the verge of understanding everything there was to know, or at least realizing that all of his questions were the wrong questions and the answers to them weren't the answers he wanted. It didn't matter, none of it did, because he was making love to Death herself, making her gasp and squirm and, yes, laugh, and how many mortal men could say they'd seen the exquisite face she made when she came? He didn't wager there were many who'd known this side of her, unless perhaps they all did in the end, and he didn't know if he'd live to tell the tale (and who would believe him if he did?) but if this was how he was going to snuff it at last, so be it. That knowledge, that peace blossomed inside him, starting somewhere near the base of his spine and radiating outwards until it overwhelmed him and he fell in glory, transcendent.

Some time later, or perhaps not, they were back at that little café in Paris, and she was sipping her drink while he stared and blinked for a long while. "Are you sure you won't come with me?" she asked. "Because, well, things are going to get bad here for a while. You might rather..."

He had to laugh at that. "I don't think so. I've seen war, famine, and pestilence before – are they relatives of yours too, by the way?"

She smiled then, so sad and sweet. "No, just old friends."

"Right. Well, it's a tempting offer, but I'm going to say no. But thank you," he added sincerely. She blew him a kiss then and turned to go. "Wait," he said, and would have caught her by the arm if he'd dared. She waited, one brow arched and a half-smile on her perfect lips. "Is that what it'll be like, when – if I do go?"

"Oh no," she replied. "That was just a _little_ Death. The real thing is so much... more." And then she was gone. The pigeons on the sidewalk took wing in unison with a fluttering rush, leaving Hob alone with a memory that was already, inevitably, fading away.


End file.
